My Weakness Is None Of Your Business

So let's be serious for a bit. Not long, I promise - I shall self-destruct if I do the whole serious thing for too long, and the result may not be pretty. But just this once...

I would love, eloquently and straightfowardly, to be able to explain depression - not just symptoms in an A-Z list, but the actual effect of it all, the overwhelming, drenching wave of utter hopelessness... But, as that sentence proved, I can't, without resulting in what sounds like melodrama. That's perhaps because it is, utimately, all rather melodramatic. It can feel like the world is ending, and if it doesn't, well, it can feel like it flippin' well should - and quickly. Depression is all-encompassing. It probably affects different people in different ways, and to different degrees, but ultimately, it's disabling, sometimes just in some aspects, sometimes disasterously so. It can stop you from doing things, from daily tasks to one-off acts, and if it doesn't, it can at the very least stop you from enjoying them. Small things take on the deepest significance. Throwaway comments from friends become the most piercing of criticisms, cheap digs suggest you might have hurt someone irreparably, whereas in reality the person you think you've hurt is probably oblivious to your angst. Emails soliciting no reply cause panic: the person must hate you, or they would have responded. Numbing paranoia ensues. Obsession with the tiniest things takes over. Depression can cause tidal waves of unshakable anxiety - sleeplessness, nausea - the whole bundle. You want to curl up in a corner and sob yourself to an early grave, or, worse, you lash out at others, and THEN you want to sob yourself to an early grave. You can convince yourself you are a terrible person who damages everything she touches, and wonder if the world would be better off without you. Nothing is fun any more - not even the things you enjoy, or the things you are best at. Life becomes something to dread; day after day activities become just a means of passing the time - and managing to do even that is an achievement. The sensible bit of your brain can't override the bit that says "I want it all to go away. I want to go away. I can't do this any more."

And, worst of all, eventually someone will blithely say to you "Cheer up" or (lethal!) "pull yourself together!" or even a simple "snap out of it." (To which I believe the response is "I'll snap YOU out of it if you don't...[insert phrase of choice here]" After which, of course, you will feel irrepressively guilty, having hurt someone you love, will assume that they never want to see your sorry ass again, and why should they? because frankly YOU don't want to see you're sorry ass again. You're useless, you're a nuisance... And so it goes on.

I can't explain it well, but I would urge everyone to read Marcus Tresothick's autobiography. It helps, of course, that the bloke is one of the greatest cricketer's the world (well, at the very least, Somerset) has ever known. But it does go to show this: you can have everything going for you. You can be hugely successful, great at what you do. You can be physically attractive. You can have, to all intents and purposes, a great life - a lovely, supportive family and enough money not to have to worry about making ends meet. But with depression, and whatever the likes of Janet Street Porter (*coughBITCHcough*) might write in whatever rag remunerates her to wind people up, none of that matters. It can affect anyone, of any age, of either sex. And unlike a lot of illnesses it isn't always visible. Someone may be full of bravado, acting the class clown, a joy to be around,but on the inside they might be tearing themselves apart in gradual, painful little rips.

So be kind to people. Try to understand, and if you don't, accept that because it isn't something you can fully grasp, it doesn't make it any less real, or any less painful. Be kind to other people, and be kind to yourself.

In the words of Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

I am bored.

I am alone.

I am blogging at 11pm when I should be thinking about bed.

I'm going to go to Rotterdam.

Why? Beause it's there. Because I have about 30 hours to kill at the start of which I will be in Paris and at the end of which I will need to be back in London. 30 hours is an annoying amount of time, because it isn't long enough to go anywhere far-flung, but it is long enough to start brooding, and it would feel like something of a waste of a day's leave to be sitting in a flat, shouting disbelieving abuse at my Wii Fit (I'll give you a Wii Fit age of 35...)

The Man in Seat 61, oracle of all that is Train Travel, tells me I can get to the Netherlands. RailEurope though is a little less optimistic. I can, it tells me, get to Eindhoven, where I was hoping to rock up and persuade my friend who lives there to stop saving the world, or whatever sciencey things it is he does in Eindhoven, for just enough time to show me the sights, which I suspect are not many. But this will involve a near-5-hour trundle across a country I have no interest in trundling across, and a change in Rotterdam, and this is somewhere I'd actually like to go. Plan B, then, might be to persuade said friend to come down to me. Plan C involves me, a bar, and as many random Europeans as I can find to watch the football with - and what a choice we have on 21st: Spain vs Honduras or South Korea vs Portugal, and frankly, if I said this thrilled me, I'd be lying. Even I have to draw the line somewhere.

So, in one of my occasional efforts to pay back my debt to society I have booked an appointment to have some grumpy people suck a pint of blood out of my arm in exchange for an underwhelming biscuit and some tepid tea in a polystyrene cup. I booked said appointment in the usual way, online, and received the usual terse email confirming my alloted time... along with the following postscript:

***Attention Football Fans***

The last time we had a World Cup (2006), the summer blood stocks fell to their lowest level for six years and there is a concern this could happen again due to a lack of donor attendance at session when key matches are on.

We have noticed your donation appointment coincides with

Argentina Vs South Korea 12:30
Greece Vs Nigeria 15:00
France Vs Mexico 19:30

If you think this would affect your capability to attend the session on this date please contact us again by either re-submitting another form or call our donor helpline on 0300 123 23 23 to arrange an alternative time.

Now, I booked my appointment for 8.45 in the morning and I can't for the life of me think how a match between the might that is Greece vs Nigeria 6 hours later might prevent me from keeping my appointment. Or, in the words of the blood service, make me "incapable" of doing so. Frankly, this worries me. I can only think it's because you're not supposed to drink within 12 hours of giving blood. Well, you can if you want to, but the effects can be interesting.

It could all be academic anyway. I recently returned from the States, and apparently you can't give blood within a certain amount of time after returning from the USA because of... malaria. Yes, I kid you not: malaria. So, while I was freezing my arse off wrapped in my Boston, Massachusetts hoodie, I could well have been harboring a potentially deadly, mosquito-borne tropical disease. You learn something new every day.

* * * *
As a mildly creepy addendum, a friend of mine today booked her appointment, to coincide with mine (moral support and that sort of thing). As someone who freely admits that at best she lacks interest in the game, she was nonetheless surprised when she received an email confirming her appointment time, but not including the postscript about the day's fixtures. What I want to know is: WHAT DO THEY KNOW ABOUT US? AND HOW DO THEY KNOW IT???

I've said it before and I'll say it again: they're watching us... and this lot want your BLOOD...

Born To Run

So, I was fairly contented with my 1:01:07 time, which, despite being gallingly ever so slightly in excess of the 1 hour I was aiming for, can't be bad for a first 10K road race.

I was pleased. I was the fastest person with my Christian name (out of, um, 4) and I ran the second 5K in a record (for me) 26 minutes.

Or a "PB", as I understand you're meant to call it.

And here's my problem: Other People.

I made the mistake a few weeks before the race of joining a chat forum (which will remain anonymous) for said race, and within minutes I was reminded of everything I hated about sporty people at school, and, by extension, why I hated sport and assumed I wasn't very good at it. This site seemed to largely be a place where people go to inflate their egos, and in doing so, crap on everybody else's. Hoping to find lots of words of encouragement from seasoned runners, I instead found the likes of "Looking forward to the 10K. Will be a nice relaxing warm-down after the marathon." A fellow first-timer had innocently asked the question "What is a good time to aim for?" and probably wished she hadn't, having elicited such responses as:

"Well, let's just say I'd be very disappointed if I was anything over 50 minutes." (No, mate, let's NOT just say, hmm?) and

"I'm aiming at 45 minutes." (Let's read the question, shall we? Did she ask what time YOU were going to run it in? Do we even care?)

"Anyone in reasonable physical shape should be aiming at under 55 minutes." (That told me, then.)

"The world record is around 27 minutes." (Er... and?)

There then followed an impressive tangent where people tried to out-modest each other in that awful ironic way where they say the exact opposite of what they mean:

"Well I've done hardly ANY training this year as SO busy at work. Just about managing a couple of 10-15K runs each week." (Translation: I'm trying to make you feel inadequate about the level of training I've done. And by the way, my job is far more important than yours. And I'm a wanker.)

"I have been suffering with a ligament injury so am having to come to terms with the fact I probably won't beat my current PB of 48 minutes, though I hope to do it in under 50." (Translation: I am super-human and/or probably don't have a ligament injury. And either way, I thought I'd drop in that I'm faster than all of you lot. And a wanker.)

"I was disappointed last year as I ran it with flu and managed a pitiful time of 45 minutes. My PB is 42 so I hope to beat that this year." (Translation: see above.)

"Training going OK. Got a PB of 51 minutes last week so shouldn't complain. Will be disappointed if I don't break 50 on the day, though." (Translation: I'm already faster than you most of you lot, and just want you to know that, even if you are happy with your efforts, I shall be sneering at you. Oh, and I too am a wanker.)

Other discussions included such topics as: "Look How Much Money I Spent On My Shoes" and "What's The Furthest Distance You've Run? I Bet Mine Is Longer".

So by the end of reading all this I was convinced that unless I ran a half marathon every week and spent my savings on a pair of shoes that looked to the untrained I like space boots I wouldn't get round at all, and even if I did finish I would do so shamed by the overwhelming averageness of my time, not to say shamed by the fact that I was running a mere 10K not just because it was something to do on a bank holiday Monday when there were no marathons on. I started to forget about piffling detail such as the fact I was raising money for charity and this was a Nice Thing To Do, and none of my sponsors would say "Eee an hour and one minute, you say? I think I'll be having me fiver back, then..." Funnily enough, few people on said chat forum actually mentioned things like charities, and those who did were ignored. ("It's my first 10K and I'm doing it in memory of my brother who died of a heart attack last year", wrote one woman, which elicited no response.)

Now, the day after the race, I have plans. I plan to run in my City shirt (that's the kind of classy chick I am) for the Bradford Burns Unit next year. And maybe I could "smash" my "PB" (if you're allowed to use that term for a time of over an hour.) Looking at the chat forum, people are announcing their times to one another, even though I don't think any of the people there have ever met, which begs the question: why are you telling us this? "38 minutes. Not too bad." writes one "I took 10 minutes off my PB with a sub-40 time" boasts another. (Well GOOD for YOU.) But the winner here: "Came 331st overall, 269th in my age catagory. Not bad considering I ran an abysmal time by my standards. We were stuck in the pen at the starting line far too long with no water so I must have got dehydrated." (The fact that you're better than, what, 95% of participants rather than 96% of participants is terrible, isn't it? I think you should sue the organisers... Go on... I dare you...)

All I can say is thanks to the person who wrote this:

"My first 10K. Very happy with 1 hr 15 mins, and reckon I can take a couple of mins off that as I stopped for a piss after 7K."

Nice.